8 Dead, 2 Rescue Workers Saved in Turkey Quake

Eight are dead, while two rescue workers were saved from the rubble following two earthquakes that struck Wednesday in eastern Turkey.

By Chana Ya'ar

First Publish: 11/10/2011, 1:45 PM

Map of Turkey earthquake location

courtesy of USGS

Two Japanese rescue workers were saved from the rubble of a collapsed building in eastern Turkey in the latest of a series of strong aftershocks that followed last month's earthquake.

Eight bodies have been recovered and it is feared that as many as 100 people may be buried in the rubble of some 25 buildings that collapsed in the 5.7-magnitude earthquake that struck Wednesday night.

Turkish rescue teams pulled the two relief workers to safety from a pile of rubble that a day earlier had been the 40-year-old Bayram Hotel. The hotel, which journalists and aid workers were using during the recovery efforts taking place to help victims of the earthquake that struck on October 23. It had been renovated just last year.

A school and a number of mudbrick homes were among the other structures that were destroyed.

At least 23 people have been pulled out alive so far from the rubble of the current disaster, according to CNN-Turk television, with rescue workers trying to open tunnels into the debris. Voices could be heard calling for help from under the debris, the Daily Mail reported.

The region has been struck repeatedly, and Wednesday was just a very, very bad day. Two separate earthquakes struck the disaster zone in less than 24 hours, with the first rattling the region at about 2:05 a.m.

No one was physically injured and no major damage was reported from the initial 5.5-magnitide temblor, which hit the Kaustuk village of Adilcevaz town of Bitlis province.

Both followed at least 1,400 aftershocks that have come in the wake of the 7.2-magnitude quake that originally destroyed much of the Van province.